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ABOUT THE POET: A scholar and professor as well as a poet, John Berryman is best-known for The Dream Songs (1969), an intensely personal sequence of 385 poems which brought him the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. In these he invented a style and form able to accommodate a vast range of material while expressing his turbulent emotions.   MESSAGE OF THE POEM: He gave a lesson that is full of wisdom through the loss of everyone, must learn to bear the pain associated with loss. The losses may be the loss of personal possession or the death of some near and dear one or due to the separation from the beloved one. As long as there is life, everyone has to bear many types of losses. Therefore we need to learn the way for bearing those losses.   SUMMARY: The poet is talking about a little boy who has lost his ball. He was playing with his ball. The ball skipped from his hand and went into the nearby water body. The poet says that this sight of the boy losing his...

The short poem by Robert Frost throws light upon the unimaginable healing power of nature and tiny things. From a bad mood to ill-health, there is nothing that can’t be cured by nature. The author was experiencing one such bad day when a crow’s movement near a hemlock tree dusted snow upon him. The snow instantly makes him happier. His day gets a lot better. Thus, the supremacy of nature as a whole made him realise how petty his problem was. The fact that hemlock tree is poisonous combined with crow being the indicator of doom and fear are used in the poem as the carriers of happiness in the life of narrator is ironical. The poet, through these objects has tried to highlight that sometimes creatures linked with negative aspects of life can be the bringer of change and happiness. Being outdoors in nature, with all it’s unpredictability can benefit anyone, anywhere at any time.   POETIC DEVICES:   Alliteration : Has  given my  heart , And  saved some ...

Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice” is a strong symbolic poem where fire is used as the emotion of desire and ice, that of hatred. He has used the idea of two groups who have their own possible explanation for the end of the world. One is of the opinion that fire alone, can destroy each and every possibility of life on Earth while the other thinks that if ice as a result of extreme low temperatures could cover the earth’s surface, it would lead to the end of the world. Both the components are compared with self-destructing human emotions: desire and hatred. The poet is originally of the opinion that he has been very closely associated with the “fiery desires” and considers it capable of bringing human beings on the verge of destruction. Thus, he considers fire as more competent for destruction. But then he thinks that “icy hatred” is just as capable of ruining humans, though slowly and steadily. Therefore, if Earth was to end twice, ice would be just as good as fire. If fire would lead ...

This chapter has been taken from Nelson Mandela’s book of the same name ‘Nelson Mandela: A Long Walk to Freedom’. It provides us a glimpse of the early life of Nelson Mandela, his education, 30 years in prison and the pains he had suffered in his young age. The chapter recounts his fight for the freedom for his own people who were tortured by whites. In the chapter Mandela gives two contradictory pictures of his own country-one, in which the blacks were tortured and suffered quietly and second, the blacks will be free to live the life of their own. About the Characters: 1 .Nelson Mandela -First black President of South Africa who fought for the equal rights of the black. He suffered a lot of pain for the freedom. 2. Zenani -Daughter of Nelson Mandela who accompanied Mandela in his inauguration day. She was very much close to him. 3. Thabo Mbeki - First Deputy President of South Africa who was very close to Mandela. 4. Mr. Deklerk- Second Deputy President of South Africa ...